What Can The Edmonton Oilers Expect From Ken Holland – Drafting
Draft History
Dating back to the 2013 NHL Draft, the Oilers have been relatively poor at drafting outside of the first round. In truth you could go back much further than 2013 and still say the same about Edmonton.
Through the past six drafts, Edmonton has produced a total of 9 players who have seen NHL time. I am not counting Bogdan Yakimov in this group as he played a single game. Of those nine, six of them have been first round selections, one third rounder in Anton Slepyshev, one fourth rounder in Caleb Jones, and one fifth rounder in Ethan Bear.
Not including the first round selections, these players have combined for a total of 137 games, 12 goals, 21 assists, and 33 points.
Meanwhile, over that same period of time the Red Wings have brought in 11 players who have seen NHL time. Similar to Edmonton, Ken Holland and the Red Wings have had each of their six first round selections play in some NHL games. It’s looking outside of the first round where Detroit has had more success.
Tyler Bertuzzi and Filip Hronek were second round selections, Dominic Turgeon and Mattias Janmark were third rounders, and Christoffer Ehn was a fourth rounder. Combined they have played a total of 478 games, 76 goals, 115 assists, and 191 points. That is a staggering difference in talent.
Holland is known for having his prospects “over-ripen” in the system before introducing them to the NHL but even with those tendencies the Red Wings have produced far more talent than Edmonton. While Edmonton has been able to make the obvious choices drafting the likes of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl in recent years, the Red Wings have been able to make strong picks later in the first round and add players like Dylan Larkin and Anthony Mantha to their core.
What to expect for this Draft?
We have yet to see Ken Holland announce any sweeping changes to the Oilers management group or the supporting staff of scouts and training staff and it’s likely if many of these changes do occur, they will not until after July 1st. At this time of year it’s incredibly rare to see the firings of scouts and draft experts as no team wants their own plan and draft list to fall into the hands of another team. Ken Holland will come into Edmonton with the added benefit of bringing in information he was privy to as Senior Vice-President of the Red Wings.
As such, it’s likely Holland will be trusting in the Oilers staff to carry on as usual with their draft lists, while doing his best to add his own personal touch on some of the picks. Currently Edmonton has all but a fifth round pick in this years draft (their 3rd round pick actually being the Islanders) and depending on how the new General Manager feels about his staffs selections, we might see more of Edmonton’s draft picks traded. But that is a conversation for another day.